Former BND chief August Hanning arrested on suspicion of high treason and leaking secrets
August Hanning was detained on 6 October 2026 amid a federal probe into alleged leaks of highly classified BND documents and contacts with a foreign agent.
German federal prosecutors have opened an investigation that led to the arrest of former Federal Intelligence Service (BND) chief August Hanning on 6 October 2026 on suspicion of high treason, espionage and unlawful possession of highly classified documents.
Early-morning arrests and a second suspect
Officers from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) detained Hanning at his home in Nordwalde, near Münster, in an early-morning operation. At the same time, authorities in Bavaria arrested a second former senior BND official identified as Manfred D., who served as Hanning’s chief of staff and worked at the agency until spring 2026.
Investigators believe Manfred D. supplied Hanning with roughly 2,000 documents, many of them briefings prepared for the Chancellery’s so-called intelligence situation meetings. Prosecutors say the material included highly sensitive information — among other topics, reporting on Iran’s nuclear program and details about the Russian military — and that some documents contained information provided by foreign partner services.
According to investigators, Hanning, now 80, is suspected of using those internal BND materials to produce security analyses for a foreign intelligence service and of communicating with a foreign agent using information from internal documents. Media reporting indicates the foreign recipient was not Russia.
Authorities say some of the seized material dates as recently as June 2022. How a purported insider in the BND removed the material from the tightly secured agency remains an open question for the investigation.
This inquiry traces back to searches of Hanning’s home and offices in September 2025 carried out by the Hamburg state criminal police in connection with the so-called Block case. Prosecutors in Hamburg have charged Kristina Block, heir to a steakhouse chain, with commissioning the kidnapping of her two youngest children in late 2023 amid a custody dispute; investigators say Hanning was allegedly involved in a prior kidnapping attempt, which he has denied. During last year’s searches officials reportedly found an electronic storage device containing particularly sensitive content.
If allegations against Hanning and the other suspect are confirmed, prosecutors say the affair would rank among the most serious intelligence scandals in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. The BND has already faced related scandals in recent years: a separate case currently before the Higher Regional Court in Berlin involves a former BND department head accused of spying for Russia in 2022, including leaks of classified BND cyber-operation material.
Hanning’s career spanned decades in Germany’s security apparatus. Before becoming BND president in 1998 — after a legal career that included responsibility for safeguarding classified information at West Germany’s mission in East Germany and roles in the Chancellery, including coordinator of the federal intelligence services — he left the BND at the end of 2005 and later served as state secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior. He was placed on temporary retirement four years later. In subsequent years Hanning worked as an entrepreneur and security consultant and, until May 2026, was part of the leadership of a controversial security company based in Switzerland.
Prosecutors also allege that in 2023 Hanning and a business partner, a former state criminal police official, planned to discredit the ex-husband of Kristina Block by planting a storage device with illegal material; that case remains under investigation. Hanning has previously denied all accusations related to the Block matter.
Photo: press material from the event
